Not every Benelux fleet is converting. Mid-size family operators — Ninatrans being the publicly cited example among Belgian hauliers — remain openly sceptical about electric trucks’ economics: purchase premiums, residual uncertainty, infrastructure costs, and doubts about real-world range on their actual routes. Their position is coherent, and understanding it matters more than dismissing it.

The sceptic’s arithmetic deserves an honest answer rather than evangelism: at single-shift, low-mileage duty without toll exposure or grants, diesel can still win a five-year comparison — our own calculator shows it under exactly those inputs. What changes the answer is the incentive stack the sceptics operate inside (the Benelux CO₂ toll at €0.166/km is ~€25,000/truck/year at corridor mileage), duty-cycle selection (electrify the paying loops, keep diesel on the rest), and evidence from peers (EUTRACO’s 54-truck operation an hour’s drive away).

WattTonne’s editorial stance is the sceptics’ own: evidence, weighed. We don’t ask Ninatrans or its peers to believe — we ask them to run their kilometres through the calculator and read the EUTRACO file. Conversion of the holdouts, when it comes, will arrive via their accountants, not our enthusiasm — which is precisely how a durable transition should happen.